Promoting American understanding of Russian folklore and traditional Russian life and culture.

Scholarships

American Friends of Russian Folklore is happy to announce our 2018-January 2019 Scholarship!

AFRF is offering a $1,900 scholarship, applicable to any of our 2018-January 2019 expeditions Any American citizen (18 or older) may apply, but we are especially looking for candidates who will help us to further American understanding of traditional village life. Past scholarship recipients have included undergraduate students, graduate students, elementary school teachers, and a professional photographer. Recipients are required to produce a paper, article, exhibit or other work about folklore or about their experience on the expedition, which we will then share with the public.

We're looking for people who are excited about learning something about village folklore on an expedition and sharing it with Americans afterwards. Scholars can do this. So can artists, musicians, authors, journalists, film-makers, middle-school teachers, etc. We consider them all.

4. There must be SOME restrictions.

You must be a US citizen or permanent resident, 18 or older, and a good team member. In addition, you must provide a physician’s statement that you have the physical, emotional and mental health to handle conditions in the field.

5. What does the scholarship cover?

The scholarship applies toward your expedition fee. This fee covers expenses from day one to the end of the expedition, including room, board & transport from the rendezvous point to the village and back. Your travel between the rendezvous point and your home, and any food and lodging before and after the expedition, are not covered.

If the expedition fee exceeds the scholarship amount, you are responsible for the difference.

6. What do I have to do in return?

We require that you share something from your expedition experience with your community.We also require that you provide us with a piece of work which describes or draws on your expedition experience-- an essay, a paper, a movie, an article, a podcast, an artwork – anything we can post on our website and share with others. Failure to fulfill this requirement will result in repayment of the scholarship in full.

Our past scholarship recipients have all done outstanding work, both in the field and in their communities after returning home. You can read more about them below.

Chasi on laundry day in Kakichev.

Congratulations to Chasi Annexy, our scholarship recipient for 2011! Chasi is a professional photographer based in New York. She helped to document music, dance and other traditions in the Cossack khutor (village) of Kakichev in July of 2011.

Two of Chasi's photographs from Kakichev were chosen for inclusion in "Feast Your Eyes", a photo exhibit sponsored by the New York Photo Festival. Chasi's pictures, "Marina Picking Apples" and "Portrait of Baba Zina in Her Kitchen," fit right in with the exhibition theme of food, meals, and cooking.

Baba Zina

Marina picking apples

Michael Young and Russian singers

The Scholarship Committee selected Michael Young, a graduate student in Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University to receive the 2010 Folklore Expedition scholarship. Michael participated in the Don Cossack Folklore Expedition in June 2010. Congratulations to Michael!

As a
result of her participation in the 2009 Don Cossack Folklore
expedition, Rachel Ulrich, an undergraduate at the Univervsity of Kentucky, wrote and presented the paper "Power and
Pride: The Mythologization of the Cossack Figure in Russian History and
Its Impact on Modern Russian National Identity." To read the paper,
click on the link below.

Kara Bayless, graduate student at Indiana University, was our scholarship recipient in 2008. Her account of her experiences on the Folklore of Siberian Villages expedition is special to us, as her untimely death in October of 2010 put an end to her young life and budding career as a folklorist.